Beto bump tightened race between Hurd and Jones

Two Texas representatives set out on a bipartisan roadtrip town hall while driving from San Antonio to Washington, D.C., after a blizzard affected travel plans: Rep. Beto O'Rourke, a Democrat from El Paso (on the right), trades off driving duty with Rep. Will Hurd, a Republican who represents Southwest Texas, including parts of San Antonio.

Photo: Beto O'Rourke / Via Facebook

When Will Hurd and Beto O’Rourke took a 1,600-mile trip last year from San Antonio to Washington, D.C., in a rented Chevy Impala, they forged a bipartisan friendship that has precluded both congressmen from politically undermining each other.

This week, however, O’Rourke nearly cost Hurd his congressional seat.

In truth, Hurd’s hold on District 23 remains uncertain, with the Helotes-based Republican clinging to an 1,150-vote (0.6 percent) lead over former Air Force intelligence officer Gina Ortiz Jones. (Jones hopes that outstanding mail-in and provisional ballots can swing the outcome for her).

The fact that the District 23 contest is going into overtime normally would be no surprise, given the way this sprawling 29-county district — which stretches from the South Side of San Antonio to West Texas — has swung back and forth between the R and D columns over the past decade.

But Hurd is a uniquely skilled retail politician and over the past two months I couldn’t find anyone — Republican or Democrat — outside the Jones camp who thought his challenger had a chance. A mid-October New York Times poll placed Hurd ahead by 15 points.

That’s where O’Rourke comes in. The blow he delivered to his former traveling buddy on election night was indirect, to be sure, but undeniable nonetheless.

We all know that O’Rourke’s close-but-no-cigar U.S. Senate campaign, which energized Texas Democrats and made him a political rock star, contributed to a big bump in voter turnout this year. His coattails helped Texas Democrats gain 12 seats in the Texas House, two in the state Senate and two in Congress.

O’Rourke’s impact in U.S. District 23 was particularly profound, however, because the district includes a piece of his home base: El Paso County.

While district turnout this year was up 81 percent from the 2014 midterms, the bump in District 23’s portion of El Paso County was much higher: 156 percent.

For Gallego, that meant gaining 4,263 votes in the county. With this year’s “Beto bump,” however, Jones carried the county by a whopping 10,567 votes.

That turnout spike helped Jones defy October predictions and election-night projections and make the race a near-dead-heat.

The O’Rourke effect in District 23 was loaded with irony, because some Jones backers expressed irritation during the campaign that O’Rourke did not endorse Jones. That short-sighted grievance failed to consider how he helped her candidacy simply by being on the ballot (just as she helped him).

None of these factors can obscure Hurd’s achievement, if he manages to hold on in District 23. After one-and-done tenures from Gallego and Quico Canseco, he’s on the verge of securing a third term.

His victories have come under wildly varying circumstances too: taking advantage of a Republican midterm wave in 2014; surviving a 2016 election in which Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton carried his district by three points; and (possibly) riding out a 2018 challenge from a tough, well-funded challenger on a night when at least 30 of his GOP colleagues were shown the door.

I caught up with Hurd on Tuesday afternoon while he greeted the slow but steady stream of voters at Parman Library at Stone Oak.

Decked out in a white guayabera and blue jeans, Hurd projected supreme confidence, as he always does.

“Our secret is that whoever my opponent is doesn’t change how I act,” Hurd said. “Elections are about someone making the decision of who’s going to best represent them.”

Hurd determined early in his congressional tenure that if he engaged face to face with enough constituents (as he’s done with his Dairy Queen town-hall tours) that it would supersede the impact of any negative campaign ads from his opponents.

“They want people that are going to represent them up in Washington, D.C., and they want people that are actually going to solve problems that impact their communities,” he said. “They don’t want to send people up there that are going to burn the place down, right?”

Almost on cue, Hurd greeted a woman who asked him to convince her teenage son to defy the political consensus of his left-leaning friends and vote Republican. He also spent several minutes talking with an African-American teacher hoping to get scholarships for her students through the Congressional Black Caucus.

Hurd, who is African-American but not a member of the Democratic-dominated caucus, promised to speak to CBC chair, Cedric Richmond, D-La., on her behalf.

The teacher walked away with a smile and said, to no one in particular, “That’s why I support this man.”

If Hurd’s lead holds, it’ll be those kinds of interactions that made the difference.

Gilbert Garcia is a native of Brownsville, Texas, with more than 20 years experience writing for weekly and daily newspapers. A graduate of Harvard University, he has won awards for his reporting on music, sports, religion, and politics. He is the author of the 2012 book, "Reagan's Comeback: Four Weeks in Texas That Changed American Politics Forever," published by Trinity University Press. One of his feature stories also appeared in the national anthology, "Da Capo Best Music Writing 2001."